UN: Urgent action needed to revamp farming rules

With the price of foodstuffs soaring, a UNESCO panel has released a report last week on the state of world agriculture that is expected to call for urgent action to revamp global farming rules. The study recommends better safeguards to protect resources and more sustainable farming practices, such as producing food locally. Also, more natural and ecological farming techniques should be used, it says.

Three years in the making, the report by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has taken on greater urgency amid recent, violent riots over rising food prices in countries like Haiti, Egypt and the Philippines.

The authors of the report – which brought together 400 contributors including scientists, government officials, activists and businesspeople – say farming is responsible for more than a third of the most deteriorated land in the world, according to a UNESCO statement.

China has large rice reserves, though pressures on farming are growingActivists and policymakers are increasingly speaking of an international food crisis, warning that unrest over soaring commodity prices could spread, and calling for an urgent increase in aid to developing nations. The UNESCO report is expected to plumb the deeper and longer-term causes of the troubles in the food industry, and recommend "urgent change in the rules that govern modern agriculture," the statement said.

Wheat prices have risen 130 percent since March 2007, UNESCO says, while soy prices jumped 87 percent. The World Bank said last week that world food prices have risen 83 percent over the last three years. Some critics are blaming in part the increasing use of biofuels. With crude oil prices high, some farmers in the West have turned to growing wheat, sugar beets or other products to produce fuels for use in vehicles. Opponents allege that such a policy could push up food prices.

World Bank chief Robert Zoellick has called on donors to give US$500 million in emergency aid to the U.N. World Food Program by May 1. The price hikes have hit people in developing countries hardest. The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, which contributed to the UNESCO report, has said food represents 60 to 80 percent of consumer spending in developing countries – compared with about 10 to 20 percent in industrialized nations.

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